TURKEY :
Leyla Zana, the only Kurdish woman MP

I
was born in May 1961 in the village of Silvan near
Diyarbakir. My father was a minor employee with
the water distribution authority who had six children,
five daughters and a son. I started primary school
at an early age but my father, a traditional and
conservative man, later forced me to give up my
studies and although I didn’t want to stop
I could not go against his will. When I was 14 years
old my father decided to marry me off to my 35 year
old cousin Mehdi. I did not remember Mehdi although
I was told I had met him earlier when he visited
my village campaigning for his party (the Communist
Party of Turkey). Mehdi had been arrested in 1971
and spent three years in prison. On his release
his mother asked for my hand for her son, and my
father agreesd.

I was distressed but despite my objections he gave
me to Mehdi. I did not choose my husband and I knew
that my life from then on would be a difficult one.
We were so different, I was a child, he was a mature
man, working as a tailor, even so at the beginning
of 1975 we were married.

Q: Your husband became the leader of one of Turkey’s
Kurdish nationalist organisations, what did you
think of his political activities?

At the time we were married there was no Kurdish
nationalist movement. The militants of that generation
were communist. All my family were very traditional
therefore I was anti-communist, as they were.

Q: So what happened?

A:
I began to change gradually. I had been living in
a small world, suddenly I was transported to a far
bigger one. When I married Mehdi I was full of contradictions;
until then I had no say in choosing my own life,
somebody else had done the choosing for me. For
the next five years it was the same, it was still
not my own life, it was controlled by Mehdi. I was
somebody to please Mehdi.

In 1980 Mehdi was arrested and sentenced to 35
years in prison, where he eventually spent the next
ten years. I was just 20 years old, I had a small
son and I was pregnant. For the first year after
his arrest I didn’t stop crying, I didn’t
know how I was going to survive, my family was not
rich, I was not financially independent, the situation
seemed hopeless.

When I went to visit Mehdi, at the gate of the
prison I met many very different people. Little
by little I began to change, to question my own
identity and to wonder exactly who I was. Until
then I had no interest in the fact that I was a
Kurd. The ideal was to be a Turk. The Turks were
openly saying “the Kurds are bullshit”
or “the Kurds have tails” (like the
animals), and we put up with it, it was the official
ideology, to be a Kurd was a disgrace. I remember
being taken to Diyarbakir’s by my mother when
I was just a small girl. She was wearing her Kurdish
peasant clothes and I was aware that because of
who we were we were badly taken care of. It is one
of my earliest memories.

Q: Were you influenced politically by Mehdi?

A: Not directly. Until 1980 the politicians of
Mehdi’s generation did not mix their family
life with their political life; afterwards that
changed.

A gradual change

Q: You say you began to change gradually, in what
way?

A: Well, for example the issue of torture. I had
known it was going on since 1979 but when Mehdi
was imprisoned they began to torture him and his
friends, I saw it as a personal thing then. I began
reading political books... I didn’t understand
all the words. For six months I was not allowed
to see Mehdi, during this time they were torturing
him and beating him. Every week I would go to the
prison to see him to be told “no visit”.
About that time I began reading the books.

The first one, I remember, was “The Partisan’s
daughter”. In those days I did not speak Turkish
well and could not understand all the words, it
was difficult reading. After that I read “The
Red Stones”, a book on the history of the
Chinese communist party. It told the story of communists
against the system, there were fascists and there
were heroes who were thrown into jail, I compared
it to pour own, the Kurdish, situation. By 1984
I had begun taking part in political activities.
I went on various demonstrations and took strike
action in front of the prison.

Q: How did it feel to be activly involved?

A: It was tremendous. I had changed, become different,
I had an identity. It was terrific. in 1984 I was
able to tell myself, “Here I am. I do
exist”. There continued to be conflict between
Mehdi and myself. He wanted me to be politically
involved, to do things but for him. He was not happy
when I did something for me.

Q: Was this sort of behaviour typical?

A: Everywhere in the world women are ill treated
by men but amongst the Kurds it is esoecially bad.
A woman is not even treated as a servant, she is
a thing, almost an animal. At home, for example,
my father slept from the morning through to the
evening when he would wake, eat and go out to see
his friends to chat with them. Meanwhile, my mother
spent the whole day working, taking care of the
animals. When she returned home in the evening to
prepare food and take care of the family he would
regularly beat her. He believed she should do everything
he wanted, just like a slave.

For the first 12 years of their married life my
mother did not bear children. Then she had four
daughters, in quick succession. Nobody talked to
her, especially my father’s family. If one
of my little sisters would awake and cry in the
night and disturb my father, he would take my mother
and the child and throw them outside, whatever the
weather. She would stay there until she felt he
was asleep and it was safe to creep back inside.

For a Kurd the birth of a girl is nothing. Not
long ago my father visited me and said: “I
want your brother to marry”. When I asked
him why he told me it was because he wanted a grandson
in case one day we succeed and there is a free Kurdistan.
I replied: “But you already have a grandson,
my son”. “No”, my father replied,
“your son is not interesting he does not carry
my name”. I am fond of my father, even though
when he comes back home he brings with him the violence
he sees outside, the violence of the gendarmes and
of the policemen.

Q: Have you ever discussed these things with your
mother?

A: No, we saw her very little. When we were younger
she was working all day and now she is in very poor
physical condition. My mother is like a very old
woman.

Q: Did your feelings of personal change continue?

A: Yes, gradually until in 1988 I was arrested.
The change had been little by little until then
when everything became clear. I was kept in custody
for seven days during which time I was interrogated
and after that I spent a further 50 days in jail.

Q: Why were you arrested?

A: I had gone to visit Mehdi. There were a lot
of people in front of the jail. It was July and
quite hot. Many of the women there were with babies
and young children, there were also old women. There
was no water and everybody was very uncomfortable,
especially the young and the elderly. They took
us in a garden where it was announced that we would
not be allowed to see the prisoners. Then, on the
other side of the wall we heard them beating the
men we had come to see. We just revolted, we began
shouting and throwing stones. I was arrested with
another 83 people. A soldier said that I had tried
to take his gun and finally I was accused of inciting
people to revolt.

The issue of torture

Q: What was the experience of prison like?

The first seven days in custody were terrible.
They subjected me to all kinds of torture. I was
blindfolded and led to the interrogation room where
I was stripped completely naked by a number of interrogators,
all men. They hit me, I collapsed and they splashed
me with cold water to bring me round. After that
they gave me back my clothes and took me back to
my cells. They also tortured me with electricity.

Q: Where?

A: On the sexual... (Leyla Zana, who until this
point had remained smiling through the interview,
became distressed and was obviously about to burst
into tears. Although she did not say it, friends
of her revealed that she had been stripped and paraded
nake in front of male prisoners held in the same
jail. For the young peasant woman from Silwan, it
was too much). Still today I have nightmares about
those days.

Q: Who were you with in prison?

A: I was sharing a cell with common prisoners,
thieves, prostitutes and drug addicts but eventually
they became friends. We cooked together, we ate
and slept together, all kinds of people in the same
situation. It was about that time that I began to
be a political activist, and when I learned there
were Kurdish women fighting with guns I was moved
to action. This changes everything, I told myseld,
a woman is also a human being.

Q: Why did you decide to become a member of parliament?

A: It was not me who decided. All through my life
it has not been me who has decided. It was the people
who wanted it.

Q: You could have refused, couldn’t you?

A: Not really when people were telling me that
doing so would be to run away from my responsabilities.
I have never accepted the idea that I should be
a slave, be passive. When I was only nine years
old I attacked my 45 year old uncle for beating
my aunt. I have always been a combatant.

Q: It did not show when you were following your
husband quite obediently in the late 1970s, did
it?

A: I was in the middle of those contradictions
I spoke about. When I was a young married woman
I felt I ought to please Mehdi. I was not brave
enough to scream and shout, the age difference was
too big. But inside myself I was screaming and shouting
as I have always been.

Q: Despite or perhaps because of your earlier struggles
you became a member of the Turkish parliament. How
many women deputies are there in the parliament?

A: There are eight of which I am the only Kurd
and the first even Kurdish woman deputy. I was elected
on 20 October 1991 with 45.000 votes.

Q: How did you feel when you knew you had been
elected?

A: I never imagined I could lose.

Q: Which solution do you advocate for the Kurdish
problem?

With 20 friends from the SHP (social democratic
party) I prepared a report, a statement that we
submitted to the leader of parliament, Erdal Inonu.
In short the statement said the State should accept
our Kurdish identity. The State gave us a lot of
hope but at the same time began massacring the Kurdish
people they had implied they would try to help.

The first day, when taking the oath, I spoke a
sentence in the Kurdish language, translated it
means: “Myself, I accept this constitutional
ceremony in the name of the fraternity between the
Turkish and Kurdish peoples”. It created a
scandal. The ceremony was broadcast live by television.
All the deputies yelled out comments like: “We
have a terrorist in the parliament”. “Dirty
Kurd”, and “Get out, this is not your
place”. The next day they forced me to resign
from the SHP. Since then I have not spoken in the
parliament.

I tried to give press interviews about the situation.
Although the Turks had spoken of achieving fraternity,
clearly it was not what they really wanted. As a
result I was treated as a second rate citizen. I
said that if we were brothers we should be equals.
I was threatened and I was also told that unless
I worked within the system and did as I was told
then I would have no future in the Turkish parliament.

Q: Will you run for the next parliament?

A: I no longer believe in the Turkish parliament.
Its role is to cover up the action of the State,
to conceal the misdeeds of the army and the police.
The people who take the decisions in Turkey are
the members of the national security council. Members
of parliament are like notaries, they merely register
the decisions. In fact, it is against everything
I believe in, I do not have a voice. No, I will
not run again.